


Waiting Room

by hotmess_ex_press



Category: Nine Muses
Genre: F/F, Hopeful Ending, Short & Sweet, most definitely ooc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2018-10-31
Packaged: 2019-08-11 05:59:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16470089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hotmess_ex_press/pseuds/hotmess_ex_press
Summary: "Oh, darling," Hyuna breathes. "What are we ever doing?"





	Waiting Room

**Author's Note:**

> i'm fucking in love with park eunji

Red roses climb the trellises arching above the door, an ever-growing frame of crawling, twisting emerald and ruby. Pretty grey stone and chipped, blue-green paint; Eunji remembers standing in front of the creaky door and slowly picking away its color, letting the flakes drop into the rows of tulips Hyuna planted in spring. There's the slam of a car door, and a warm hand barely tracing over the line of her shoulder. She breathes deep and tries to ignore the burn in her eyes. It's raining, harder now than it was before, and her sweater is soaked through.

"Let's go in, yeah?" she asks.

The hand is hastily drawn back, and Eunji feels terribly small, almost alone and freezing, with her duffel bag hitting against the backs of her knees. Hyuna steps around her and fumbles with the keys, the door sticking when she doesn't push hard enough. Her hair is dyed a shiny black again, bangs growing out and dripping water down her cheekbones. Eunji could scream.

It's cold inside, and dusty. Dim all around. The lights flicker when Hyuna turns them on, and wilted bouquets of azaleas and primroses cut across the kitchen table. Hyuna swipes them away and chuckles nervously, and Eunji is painfully reminded that she has been avoiding this place just the same.

_She's been sleeping on my couch_ , Sera had told her over the phone, three a.m. or something similarly ridiculous. _Is everything alright_?

_Peachy_ , Eunji had responded. That was months ago.

"It's just like you remembered it, huh?" Hyuna begins to wrinkle her nose, like she used to when she was caught evenly between amusement and annoyance, but she stops herself and looks away, trailing shaky fingertips over the dark cherry-wood windowsill, where they used to prop up their holiday cards. "Go on, get changed. I'll make some tea."

Eunji ducks her head and slips past Hyuna. She pauses in the hallway, hovering before the master and guest bedroom.

An acute pang of regret slams into Eunji, nearly strong enough to wipe her out, and she screws her eyes shut as she reaches for the guestroom door, holding her breath. The hinges are old, _what isn't_ , and dust rises up when she throws her bag onto the faded yellow bedspread, pulling her felt hat off and dropping it to the floor. She perches on the bed as she undresses, watching herself in the mirror that stretches across the opposite wall. Pale, too thin. She could count her ribs.

"You hungry?" Hyuna questions when Eunji rustles back into the kitchen. The hem of her blue-patterned dress is weighed down by rain, a tiny puddle growing underneath her. Eunji laughs, the sound too-loud and alien, stark against the silence, and Hyuna blushes.

"Never." Hyuna smiles at that, muted, close-lipped, and bitter, and, a year ago, she would have walked over, wrapped safe arms around Eunji's waist, whispered to her collarbone, _you should eat_.

Instead, she nods, turns away. "Alright."

The _now_ hurts. It leaves an emptiness inside of Eunji that she can't even begin to compare to hunger.

They sit across from each other at the unused dining table, Hyuna with honey in her tea, Eunji with lemon in hers. Hyuna brings out a plate of stale butter cookies that neither of them touch. The steady, demanding rhythm of rain echoes throughout; Eunji looks outside and it is all grey, shadows and clouds and evening-darkened trees as far as she can see. She feels cobwebby and apprehensive.

"Oh, darling," Hyuna breathes. "What are we ever doing?"

Eunji grins half-heartedly, the other half shattering somewhere inside of her. Hyuna is delicate in all the places her reassuring smile hides. She is a fairytale, all of her perfection. Too good to be true, and so very misty. "Nothing we can control."

"We could have been beautiful," Hyuna stares into her tea, cold by now, surely, her glossy hair swinging to curtain her glistening eyes. "Us, together."

Eunji puts a hand up to her mouth, clears her throat gently, knowing that if she coughs the wrong way it'll come out as a sob. "It's always too late, isn't it?"

They could have been a _dream_. Fairies, the both of them, grace and gauze feet and the bones jutting right out of them. Sweet kisses and one secret, achingly delicious love, shared along with quiet cups of tea and fresh-baked bread in this half-hidden haven, covered in flowers.

It hurts all over, to think about it.

"Maybe," Hyuna says. The moonlight is gone from her gaze, replaced only by _empty_. "Maybe."

The air swirls and thickens, so Eunji gets up to leave. Hyuna trails after her, helps her put on her hat and fasten her jacket, something so close to tender. A good sort of domestic, they could have worked out. She presses silky, insistent lips to Eunji's jaw and clutches on to the lapels of her coat.

"Don't go," she whispers, though it sounds more like an almost-wish. "Please, don't. Stay a night. A week. Stay awhile."

The wind smoothes against Eunji like the love she has missed for so long. Hyuna is red-rimmed, glassy and lovely. _Darling_ , she called Eunji, sugar words from a sugar tongue. Eunji wouldn't mind hearing it again. She tilts her head up and catches the last few drops of gentle rain in her eyelashes, weary as she's ever been.

"Okay," she replies, and relief breaks over Hyuna the same way waves crash over the sand. "I have time."

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are loved and cherished forever!


End file.
